“Salt-n-Pepa's here, and we're in effect
Want you to push it back
Cooling by day, then at night, working up a sweat
C'mon girls, let's go show the guys that we know
How to become number one in a hot party show
Now push it - push it good”

—— Salt-N-Pepa

For July’s Frugal Film Project roll, I decided I’d see how EZ400 (re-badged Fomapan 400) film handles being pushed. What does it mean to “push film”, you may ask? Well, its not like a drug dealer “pushing” drugs. It means intentionally shooting film at a higher or “faster” ISO rating than it states on the box (ie, “Box Speed”). Shooting a film at a higher ISO rating means that you are technically underexposing the film, and that you have to make that up in the development process by leaving the film in the chemicals longer. The result is often increased contrast and grain in the image.

I will often shoot Ilford’s HP5+ at ISO 1600 instead of its box 400 speed, but that’s generally only in 120 medium format film. The larger film negative will handle the extra grain just fine, without making the additional grain into a distraction.

But I don’t generally push 35mm film. For me, I consider the negative to be small to begin with, and adding additional grain means it ends up being way grittier than I prefer it to be. It’s a personal thing for me, as others love it. But hey, the Frugal Film Project for me this year is all about experimentation, so why not?

For the rest of this post, I will be calling the film Foma 400 instead of it’s rebadged EZ400 name. Because EZ400 is no longer being sold, it makes sense to treat this information as being about Foma 400, as that’s what most people will be able to purchase now and in the future.

Foma 400 is considered by most to be an ISO 200 to 250 film at best. And at least with the developing chemicals that I use, I’ve found that to be the case. So using ISO 250 as my base, a 1-stop push would be 500 and a 2 stop push would be 1000. Deciding that a 2-stop push would be worth giving a try, I loaded a roll in my trusty Nikon F80 and set the ISO rating on the camera to 1000.

I shot the roll over a period of about 2 weeks – carrying with me on various birding and hiking trips to just document what I saw. Conditions ranged from early dawn and fog to bright sunny afternoons. Once the roll was finished, it was time to develop!

I decided to use Ilfosol 3 again to develop the film. In the past when I’ve shot it at ISO 250, I used a mix ratio of 1:9 and developed the film for 8.5 minutes at 68F. Using some rough calculations based on some rates I found in the Massive Development chart, I decided that for a 2-stop push I’d develop at the same 1:9 mix ratio for 15.5 minutes at 68F.

After developing I scanned the images with my Nikon CoolScan V scanner, with some light dust removal done in Photoshop. Below are my 10 favorites from the roll. Click on the first image to view larger in a different window.

It’s grittier and grainer when shot and developed this way. Is it something I like? Hmm, I’m not certain. I’ll have to live with these images for a bit before I make my final call.

As a proof-of-concept, this does show that you can successfully push Foma 400 by 2 stops if you are in a low light situation, and you need the extra speed – as long as you are fine with losing a lot of shadow details and the additional grain. It also shows that for a “cheap film”, Foma 400 is fairly versatile.

What are your thoughts about the results?

For next month’s roll, I think I may go the opposite direction and “pull” the film. “Pulling film” means you actually overexpose the film, and then compensate by developing for a shorter time. This often results in a less grainy film look, but in bright conditions there is a risk of blowing out the highlights and losing information. Should be interesting!

As always, thanks for reading!

Jeremy